“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” - George W. Bush

Saturday, February 20, 2016

"NATO should now isolate Turkey from decision making regarding Syria and then remove them from the alliance once the Syrian war is over. Turkey has been playing both sides and cannot be trusted within the alliance. This would be prudent and Turkey is not exactly going to jump into bed with Russia if removed from NATO.”

The war in Syria is reaching a climax. The Syrian army, supported by Russian bombers, is advancing north of Aleppo to cut off the Syrian armed opposition from the Turkish border. The Syrian Kurds, backed by US air strikes, are closing in on Isis and non-Isis supply lines in the same area. In the wake of the bomb in Ankara on 17 February that killed 28 people, Turkey is threatening military intervention in Syria in retaliation for the attack. On Friday, President Barack Obama spent one hour and 20 minutes on the phone to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, urging restraint.

“The Turks and the Saudis are always trying to nudge the US into sending ground troops to Syria, but they are not going to launch a large-scale military intervention on their own,” said a former senior diplomat in the Middle East. Turkish and Saudi policy on Syria has hitherto been full of threats and bombast, but it is dangerously mercurial and some form of military action cannot be ruled out, even if it is opposed by the US or Russia.

The US knows that Turkish military action would be directed primarily against the Syrian Kurds and the People’s Protection Units (YPG) that have been America’s most effective ally fighting Isis. In his conversation with Mr Erdogan, Mr Obama is reported to have said that the YPG should not seek to exploit recent gains by the Syrian army north of Aleppo to take more territory. But at the very moment that the two men were speaking, the success of US-YPG co-operation was underlined by a little-reported victory in north-east Syria, where the Syrian Democratic Forces, a proxy for the YPG, captured the important Isis stronghold of Shadadeh with the help of US air strikes.

There is a further reason why the US would be loath to give up its military alliance with the Syrian Kurds. “Over a year ago, the Americans realised that the Turks were not going to close their border with Syria to Isis and other jihadis on its northern, Turkish side,” said the former diplomat. “So the Americans decided to close the border on the southern side, with the help of the Syrian Kurds.” It is this plan which is now close to fulfilment.

President Obama’s policies in Syria since the rise of Isis in the summer of 2014 have always made more sense than critics supposed. Prior to the fall of Mosul, the White House had miscalculated the degree to which the Syrian war could left to fester without destabilising the rest of the region. Mr Obama unwisely compared the movement that became Isis to a junior basketball team seeking to play in the big leagues.

But Mr Obama has a far more acute sense than most other politicians about the ease with which the US, or any other foreign power intervening in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan, can become plugged into local confrontations and disputes. I once asked General David Petraeus, the commander of the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul in 2004, what was the most important advice he could give to his successor. He said, after reflecting for some moments, that his advice would be “not to align too closely with one ethnic group, political party, tribe, religious group or social element”.

This approach is sensible, though scarcely feasible, because a foreign power under pressure acquires local allies where it can find them without inquiring too closely into their character and motives. For instance, Turkey has pushed for the US to support “safe havens” for displaced people and moderate armed opposition in northern Syria. This sounds benign and even humanitarian until one realises that the idea is directed primarily at stopping the Kurds from controlling more territory, and that the Turkish definition of “moderate” appears to include extreme jihadis such as Ahrar al-Sham that usually fight in alliance with the al-Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry give a press conference in Munich. The Americans and the Russians are today crucial military players in Syria (Getty)

It is right to be sceptical of “tail-wags-the-dog” explanations in which big powers shift the blame for their more culpable actions to local allies. But it also true that one of the main reasons for the disastrous outcome of foreign interventions in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 is that they have been justified as actions against a much-demonised enemy and in favour of an over-praised, moderate, secular opposition which did not exist.

In Iraq in 2003, the US dissolved the Iraqi army; this is often recalled as a foolish and unnecessary act by the head of the US occupation, Paul Bremer, which had the disastrous consequence of alienating the Sunni officer class and promoting the rise of al-Qaeda in Iraq. But I was in Baghdad at the time and, in reality, the dissolution of the army was being recommended to the Americans by the Kurdish and Shia leaders, representing 80 per cent of Iraqis, who rightly saw the Iraqi security forces as the most important institution through which the 20 per cent Sunni minority had traditionally held power. The Americans and allies such as the British were unwittingly presiding over a sectarian and ethnic revolution which was bound to have explosive consequences.

Skip forward 10 years to the poison gas attack in Damascus in August 2013, when the US and Britain almost intervened militarily against the Syrian government. In retrospect, this is recalled as the moment when a chance was lost to back a moderate armed opposition in overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad. In fact, the Syrian army controlled most of the populated parts of the country at the time, so any foreign air campaign would have had to be sustained along the same lines as Libya. And the outcome would have been similar to Libya as well, since Isis, al-Nusra and other jihadis already dominated the armed opposition and would have taken power.

Ankara explosion: 'car bomb' hits Turkish capital

Mr Obama evidently realised this at an early stage, and has shown understandable impatience at what became almost conventional wisdom among politicians and the media. He said in 2014 that the idea that there was ever a moderate opposition “in a position to suddenly overturn not only Assad but also ruthless, highly trained jihadists if we just sent a few arms is a fantasy. And I think it’s very important for the American people – but maybe more importantly, Washington and the press corps – to understand that.” It would be interesting to know if Mr Obama’s thoughts on David Cameron’s famous “70,000 moderate fighters”, whom Britain supports, are equally scathing.

The Syrian uprising or war has passed through three phases: a short period in 2011 when local forces determined what was happening in the country; 2012 to 2014 when regional powers such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran played a dominant role; and 2014 to 2016 when the conflict became internationalised. Three events marked the last period, in which the US and Russia became the decision-makers: the rise of Isis in 2014; the consequent start of the US air campaign; the beginning of the Russian air strikes a year later.

Americans and Russians are today crucial military players in Syria and it is becoming too late for Turkey and Saudi Arabia to buck the trend successfully, though this does not prove that they will not try to do so.

"Russia has invested very seriously in this crisis, politically, diplomatically, and now also in the military sense. Therefore we of course would like that Bashar Al-Assad take account of that," Moscow' envoy to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said in an interview with Russian newspaper Konnersant on Thursday, according to Middle East Monitor.

Moscow' envoy to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said in an interview with Russian newspaper Konnersant on Thursday, according to Middle East Monitor.

"We shouldn't assign too much importance to some of the statements, dramatize them... This is my personal point of view. I heard on TV President Assad's statement. It obviously contradicts Russia's diplomatic efforts. There is the Vienna process, the latest agreements with the International Syria Support Group reached in Munich that include the ceasefire, the cessation of military activity in the foreseeable future. We are working on this now," Churkin added, according to RBTH.

The Russian warning comes as a response to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's recent statements regarding recapturing all of Syria.

"Regardless of whether we can do that or not, this is a goal we are seeking to achieve without any hesitation. It makes no sense for us to say that we will give up any part," Assad told AFP news agency last week.

Now please tell us what the consequences are supposed to be.The Russian diplomat did not mention any.

The Russian official also noted that if the Syrian regime “follows Russia's leadership in resolving this crisis, then they have a chance to come out of it in a dignified way… If they in some way stray from this path - and this is my personal opinion - a very difficult situation could arise. Including for themselves.”

“If they proceed on the basis that no ceasefire is necessary and they need to fight to a victorious end, then this conflict will last a very long time and that is terrifying to imagine,”

As everyone here knows, i think both sides of the syrian conflict suck.

As an American who supports Israel I view the syrian situation and the so called arab spring with wonder and dismay, but in the end? I see the syrians, russia and iran (and hezbollah) slaughter over 360 thousand sunnis in Syria alone. Create 12 million refugees. Kill more palestinians than Israel has ever in 60 years.

and not a peep of dismay out of the world's (and this blogs) palestinian cheerleaders.

But the pattern continues across the moslem world....

And now the Turkey and Russia card...

America has given the green light for Iranian ascent and a pile of cash to boot...

Iran is going on a weapons buying spree....

Judging by the pattern started in Syria, Iraq and yemen (as well as some others) the Sunni arab world will react with it's own arms race.

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump said Wednesday night he'd be "a neutral guy" when it comes to negotiating the Israel-Palestinian conflict, during an MSNBC-hosted town hall.

In an exchange about the potential for a peace agreement, anchor Joe Scarborough asked the Republican front-runner, "Whose fault do you think it is?"

"I don't want to get into it for a different reason, Joe, because if I do win, there has to be a certain amount of surprise, unpredictability," he said at a town hall Wednesday, adding that by declining to tip his hand, he would be in a better position to negotiate.

"Let me be sort of a neutral guy, let's see what -- I'm going to give it a shot. It would be so great," Trump said.

The remark contrasts with the many Republicans -- and some Democrats -- who often pledge unequivocal support for Israel.

Trump said reaching a peace agreement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is "probably the toughest agreement of any kind to make."

"A lot of people say an agreement can't be made, which is OK, sometimes agreements can't be made, not good," he said.

"It is a very, very tough agreement to make," Trump added. "But I will give it one hell of a shot. That I can tell you. But of all agreements -- I would say if you can do that deal, you can do any deal."

If the US moves its embassy, it would not be neutral.Not at all, "O"rdure is either behind the information curve, or thinks Donald is a liar.

Trump previously suggested that the burden of peace rested largely on the shoulders of the Jewish state, saying a peace deal "will have to do with Israel and whether or not Israel wants to make the deal -- whether or not Israel's willing to sacrifice certain things."

At the Republican Jewish Coalition's Presidential Forum, Trump said he doesn't know whether "Israel has the commitment to make (a peace deal) and I don't know that the other side has the commitment to make it."

"It has to be said that Israel has given a lot," Trump said, adding, "I don't know whether or not they want to go along to that final step (of making a deal)."

ISTANBUL — Turkey is confronting what amounts to a strategic nightmare as bombs explode in its cities, its enemies encroach on its borders and its allies seemingly snub its demands.

As recently as four years ago, Turkey appeared poised to become one of the biggest winners of the Arab Spring, an ascendant power hailed by the West as a model and embraced by a region seeking new patrons and new forms of governance.

All that has evaporated since the failure of the Arab revolts, shifts in the geopolitical landscape and the trajectory of the Syrian war.

Russia, Turkey’s oldest and nearest rival, is expanding its presence around Turkey’s borders — in Syria to the south, in Crimea and Ukraine to the north, and in Armenia to the east. On Saturday, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced the deployment of a new batch of fighter jets and combat helicopters to an air base outside the Armenian capital, Yerevan, 25 miles from the Turkish border.

The Turks should have allowed the 4th ID to land and traverse their country, that they did not, put them on the wrong side of the divide. Payback can be a long time in coming, as Colonel Q found out.But payback is a medivac, make no mistake about that...

Blowback from the Syrian war in the form of a string of suicide bombings in Istanbul and Ankara, most recently on Wednesday, has brought fear to Turkish streets and dampened the vital tourist industry.

The collapse of a peace process with Turkey’s Kurds has plunged the southeast of the country into war between Kurds and the Turkish military just as Syrian Kurds carve out their own proto-state in territories adjacent to Turkey’s border.

The economy is in the doldrums, hit by fears of instability and by sanctions from Moscow targeting such goods and revenue sources as Turkish tomatoes and tourism in retaliation for the downing of a Russian plane in November....“Turkey is facing a multifaceted catastrophe,” said Gokhan Bacik, professor of international relations at Ankara’s Ipek University. “This is a country that has often had problems in the past, but the scale of what is happening now is beyond Turkey’s capacity for digestion.”

A rift with the United States, Turkey’s closest and most vital ally, over the status of the main Syrian Kurdish militia, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), has further exposed Turkey’s vulnerability.

A demand by President Recep Tayyep Erdogan that Washington choose between NATO ally Turkey and the YPG, its main Syrian ally in the fight against the Islamic State, was rebuffed by the State Department this month, despite Turkish allegations that the YPG had carried out the bombing in Ankara.

On Saturday, Turkey dug in, demanding unconditional support from the United States. “The only thing we expect from our U.S. ally is to support Turkey with no ifs or buts,” Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told journalists in Ankara.

Turkey now stands completely isolated, trapped in a maze of quandaries that are partly of its own making, said Soli Ozel, professor of international relations at Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.

“It has so alienated everyone it cannot convince anyone to do anything,” he said. “It is a country whose words no longer carry any weight. It bluffs but does not deliver. It cannot protect its vital interests, and it is at odds with everyone, including its allies.

“For a country that was until very recently seen as a consequential regional power, these facts strike me as quite disastrous,” he added.

NEW DELHI — Hundreds of Indian security forces imposed a curfew and were ordered to fire without warning in a bid to quell protests by members of an underprivileged community demanding government benefits in a northern state, where at least six people have died in clashes, officials said.

The violence raged for a second straight day Saturday and protesters burned several railroad stations and attacked shops and vehicles in several towns in Haryana state, said police officer Y.P. Singhal.

Protesters also blocked highways linking New Delhi to key northern cities, he said, adding that authorities ordered police to fire without warning at those instigating violence.

The protesters are members of the lower-caste Jat agricultural community, who are demanding benefits both at the federal and state levels, including guaranteed government jobs or university spots. Talks Friday between community leaders and state government representatives failed to lead to an agreement.

Authorities used helicopters to bring in army soldiers to the worst-hit districts of Rohtak, Bhiwani and Jhajjar, where curfews were in place, Singhal said. Five more towns were put under curfew later Saturday to prevent the violence from spreading.

Bad form to have the military fire on civilians without warning.Not up to the NATO standard, not at all.

If Quirk were to visit India with me I'd try to get him some help under the Other Backward Classes clauses. I'd explain to them that he grew up deprived in the environs of vicious Detroit, Michigan, took to drinking and driving and was fleeing the violence there and was trying to turn his life around. They would understand and offer aid.

**Affirmative action

Article 15 of the Constitution of India prohibits discrimination based on caste and Article 17 declared the practice of untouchability to be illegal.[292] In 1955, India enacted the Untouchability (Offences) Act (renamed in 1976, as the Protection of Civil Rights Act). It extended the reach of law, from intent to mandatory enforcement. The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was passed in India in 1989.[293]The National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes was established to investigate, monitor, advise, and evaluate the socio-economic progress of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.[294]**

**Other Backward Classes (OBC)

The Mandal Commission covered more than 3000 castes under Other Backward Class (OBC) category, regardless of their affluence or economic status and stated that OBCs form around 52% of the Indian population. However, the National Sample Survey puts the figure at 32%.[286][287] There is substantial debate over the exact number of OBCs in India; it is generally estimated to be sizable, but many believe that it is lower than the figures quoted by either the Mandal Commission or the National Sample Survey.[288]

The reservation system has led to widespread protests, such as the 2006 Indian anti-reservation protests, with many complaining of reverse discrimination against the Forward Castes (the castes that do not qualify for the reservation).**

As for General 'Memorial Day' rats'ass, I'd have him sent to northern Pakistan where he would feel most at home.

What can you expect from a country of 1.2 billion that has legalized and institutionalized a caste system?****

Affirmative action

Article 15 of the Constitution of India prohibits discrimination based on caste and Article 17 declared the practice of untouchability to be illegal.[292] In 1955, India enacted the Untouchability (Offences) Act (renamed in 1976, as the Protection of Civil Rights Act). It extended the reach of law, from intent to mandatory enforcement

The Elio weighs just 1,200 pounds, less than half the heft of a Honda Civic. A narrow cockpit, just wide enough for the driver and a tandem rear passenger, dramatically reduces air resistance. A small trunk accommodates a flight-sized carry-on bag, or a duffel with the rear seat folded down.

Sales staff call it a handy second or third car, to complement a family sedan, minivan or SUV. At a base price of $6,800, they say, the Elio quickly pays for itself in fuel savings and by keeping mileage off primary family vehicles.

“We’ve got 35,000 (purchase) reservations that speak to the excitement level and that’s without any TV advertising,” said Jerome Vassallo, vice president of sales. “You don’t have to oversell a $6,800 car.”

U.S Special Forces operating in Syria have obtained considerable evidence of widespread Turkish involvement in support of Islamic State.

The most recent, well publicized example, resulted from a raid on the compound of the Islamic State's finance chief, Abu Sayyaf, in May 2015. The raid led to the death of Sayyaf, the capture of his wife, Umm Sayyaf, and the recovery of a cache of documents and computers which, according to intelligence sources, indicate that the Turkish Intelligence Agency, MIT, was fully aware of the Islamic State's smuggling operations, the Turkish companies participating and may even have facilitated the smuggling.

Turkish foreign policy is in shambles. Erdogan's attempt to position Turkey as the leader of the Sunni world is failing. Instead Turkey finds itself in a growing conflict with Russia, a conflict that if Turkey invades Syria could erupt into a direct military clash between the two countries. Such a clash could well, according to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev "draw everybody in" and might lead "to a new world war." The latter is a bit of an exaggeration, but the prospect of broader fighting is a very real threat.

Ankara's ambivalence in fighting the Islamic State, and its single-minded determination to prevent the creation of an autonomous Kurdish state in Syria, is bringing it increasingly into conflict with the United States. In addition, Turkey's inability to stem the tide of Syrian refugees, at the very least, those that are transiting Turkey's frontiers, is bringing it into conflict with the European Union.

By aligning itself with the Syrian Kurds, while simultaneous supporting Syrian armed forces against the Free Syrian Army and the various Islamist organizations in the civil war, Russia is singlehandedly changing the reality on the ground in Syria.

The Russians doing what the US could and should have done in the battle against the Islamic State.

The Obama administration pursued a policy in Libya back in 2011 that ultimately allowed guns to walk into the hands of jihadists linked to the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) and al-Qaeda (AQ) in Syria, according to a former CIA officer who co-authored a report on behalf of the Citizen’s Commission on Benghazi (CCB), detailing the gun running scheme.

At least 46 people have been killed in a double car bombing in the Syrian city of Homs, a monitoring group has said.Most of the dead appear to be civilians, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.It is not yet clear who was behind the bombing but the so-called Islamic State (IS) has targeted the area in the past.At least four explosions were also later heard in the southern Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab, the Observatory said.

BEIRUT (AP) — Saudi Arabia announced on Friday it is halting deals worth $4 billion aimed at equipping and supporting Lebanese security forces in retaliation for the tiny country's siding with Iran amid the Sunni kingdom's spat with the Shiite power.

The surprise announcement, carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, comes as deeply divided Lebanon struggles to handle the fallout from neighboring Syria's raging civil war. The Lebanese prime minister said his government "deeply regretted" the Saudi decision adding that this is a sovereign matter for the kingdom.

"We did not want the matter to reach what contradicts that nature of historic relations between Lebanon and the country of the two shrines (Saudi Arabia)," read a statement released by Prime Minister Tammam Salam's office. "We are keen on keeping the relations brotherly and friendly."

One deal involves a four-year, $3 billion Saudi pledge to buy French arms for the Lebanese military, which already has seen the Mediterranean country receive modern anti-tank guided Milan missiles last year. The other involves a $1 billion support deal for the Lebanese police.

Very nice website and articles. I will be realy very pleased to visit your website. Now I am found that we actually want. I check your website everyday and attempt to learn something from a blog. Thank you and looking forward to your new submit.

Ah, notice the Leader of the Hamas calls for the removal of JEWS (not Israelis) from all the land

Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar vowed on Saturday to remove all the Jews from “Palestine”.

Al-Zahar’s comments, quoted by Hamas’s Palestine newspaper, came at a ceremony in memory of a Hamas terrorist who was killed in one of the recent collapses of Hamas’s terror tunnels.

He said that the struggle to liberate “Palestine” would not be stopped by borders and barbed wire fences.

Al-Zahar praised "the young people who are standing in front of tanks holding a rock and a knife” before declaring, "We will remove the Jews from our land; this is a divine promise that will take place."

At the same ceremony, a representative of Hamas’s so-called “military wing”, the Al-Qassam Brigades, said that the "struggle is the only way and the most appropriate way to liberate Palestine and dispose of its occupier.”

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/207972#.VsnaEse6xpq

To deny that Jews have every right to live there is racist. To advocate the murder of every Jew? Well that's just Hawkinisic

Military reinforcements arrived in Fallujah, security forces prepare to storm the city

(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – The Command of al-Hashed al-Shaabi in Anbar Province announced on Sunday the arrival of military reinforcements from Baghdad in the outskirts of the city of Fallujah (62 km west of Baghdad) in preparation to storm the city, while emphasized that the troops are waiting to start the battle of liberation.

Jumaili said in a press statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “The combat and military forces began to deploy its troops and snipers on the front berms, as well as deploying tanks, armor and artillery units,” pointing out that, “These forces are waiting for the final orders to start the liberation battle of Fallujah from the so-called ISIS.”

Jumaili added, “The security forces from the army, police and tribal fighters worked on establishing a berm in the regions of al-Kayfiya and Shihabi that extends to seven kilometers, in order to separate and isolate ISIS areas in al-Karma east of Fallujah.”

“The security forces advanced into a depth of 5 km in the center of al-Karma District, and deployed security detachments in those areas,” Jumaili continued.

Following Donald Trump’s victory in the South Carolina GOP primary, talk radio host Glenn Beck urged his Facebook followers to join him and his family “in a fast for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), our country and the Nevada caucus.”

“I would like to ask you to join me and my family Monday in a fast for Ted Cruz, our country and the Nevada caucus,” Beck wrote on his Facebook page after the South Carolina election results showed a decisive double-digit victory for Trump, whose candidacy Beck has been staunchly opposed to....

...The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was passed in India in 1989.[293]The National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes was established to investigate, monitor, advise, and evaluate the socio-economic progress of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.[294]**...

And Idaho Bob goes on ad nauseum trying to defend that which is indefensible by citing more and more evidence of the following

What can you expect from a country of 1.2 billion that has legalized and institutionalized a caste system?

And his argument seems to be classification and discrimination are all right as long as you institute affirmative action to assure them a certain number of jobs.

If such a system were in force today in USA, Quirk's son, for instance, would be in advertising, striving to induce people to pay too much for things they don't really need, my son would be farming, providing food for the masses.

How did you get on the subject in the first place ? When the topic of the day is all USA politics ?

I was responding to rat's post directly above mine. Can't you even follow the flow of a discussion? What do you do jump around from post to post without even trying to understand the continuity? If so, that explains a lot.

n 2014, the former director of both the CIA and NSA proclaimed that "we kill people based on metadata." Now, a new examination of previously published Snowden documents suggests that many of those people may have been innocent.

Last year, The Intercept published documents detailing the NSA's SKYNET programme. According to the documents, SKYNET engages in mass surveillance of Pakistan's mobile phone network, and then uses a machine learning algorithm on the cellular network metadata of 55 million people to try and rate each person's likelihood of being a terrorist.

Patrick Ball—a data scientist and the director of research at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group—who has previously given expert testimony before war crimes tribunals, described the NSA's methods as "ridiculously optimistic" and "completely bullshit." A flaw in how the NSA trains SKYNET's machine learning algorithm to analyse cellular metadata, Ball told Ars, makes the results scientifically unsound.

Somewhere between 2,500 and 4,000 people have been killed by drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004, and most of them were classified by the US government as "extremists," the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported. Based on the classification date of "20070108" on one of the SKYNET slide decks (which themselves appear to date from 2011 and 2012), the machine learning program may have been in development as early as 2007.

In the years that have followed, thousands of innocent people in Pakistan may have been mislabelled as terrorists by that "scientifically unsound" algorithm, possibly resulting in their untimely demise...

Given the complete set of metadata, SKYNET pieces together people's typical daily routines—who travels together, have shared contacts, stay overnight with friends, visit other countries, or move permanently. Overall, the slides indicate, the NSA machine learning algorithm uses more than 80 different properties to rate people on their terroristiness.

The program, the slides tell us, is based on the assumption that the behaviour of terrorists differs significantly from that of ordinary citizens with respect to some of these properties. However, as The Intercept's exposé last year made clear, the highest rated target according to this machine learning program was Ahmad Zaidan, Al-Jazeera's long-time bureau chief in Islamabad.

The highest scoring selector who travelled to Peshawar and Lahore is "PROB AHMED ZAIDAN", Al-Jazeera's long-time bureau chief in Islamabad.

As The Intercept reported, Zaidan frequently travels to regions with known terrorist activity in order to interview insurgents and report the news. But rather than questioning the machine learning that produced such a bizarre result, the NSA engineers behind the algorithm instead trumpeted Zaidan as an example of a SKYNET success in their in-house presentation, including a slide that labelled Zaidan as a "MEMBER OF AL-QA'IDA."

And these are the morons that are demanding that Apple give them a back door to customers phones.

The article on Skynet is pretty long so I won't print it all; but it does go into the flaws in the system, the false positives, and the potential deaths of innocents that could result from using it. However, just as important is an issue noted in another article on the same subject.

"...Well, in April 2014, at a symposium at Johns Hopkins University, General Michael Hayden, a former director of both the CIA and the NSA, said this: “We kill people based on metadata”. He then qualified that stark assertion by reassuring the audience that the US government doesn’t kill American citizens on the basis of their metadata. They only kill foreigners..."

If that statement doesn't point to the complete amorality of the people running these programs, I don't know what would.

Hillary Clinton has made over $100 million giving speeches with her so called husband. Her daughter is married to a Hedge Fund guy living in a multi million dollar Manhattan home, BUT Hillary is fighting for the little guy.

Throughout the Bush years, liberals repeated “Bush lied, people died” like a mantra. That slander wasn’t true then and it’s not anymore true now that it has resurfaced. There are many legitimate criticisms of the way the Bush Administration conducted the war in Iraq and even more of the way Obama threw away all the blood and treasure we spent there for the sake of politics, but you have to be malicious or just an imbecile at this point to accuse Bush of lying about WMDs.

To begin with, numerous foreign intelligence agencies also believed that Saddam Hussein had an active WMD program. The "intelligence agencies of Germany, Israel, Russia, Britain, China and France" all believed Saddam had WMDs. CIA Director George Tenet also rather famously said that it was a “slam dunk” that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Incidentally, it’s hard to fault the CIA for their conclusions when even, “In private conversations that were intercepted by U.S. intelligence, Iraqi officials spoke as if Saddam continued to possess WMD. Even Iraqi generals believed he did. In the fall of 2002, the Iraqi military conducted exercises in chemical protective gear – but not because they thought the U.S.-led coalition was going to use chemical weapons.”

Additionally, many prominent Democrats who had access to the same intelligence that George Bush did came to the same conclusion and said so publicly. If George W. Bush lied, then by default you have to also believe that Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, John Edwards, Robert Byrd, Tom Daschle, Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders also lied. Some of them, like Hillary Clinton, even alleged that Saddam was working on nuclear weapons.

“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.” — Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002

Even Bernie Sanders, who opposed the war from the beginning, publicly said he believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.....

Updated at 5:08 p.m.: Where to start? Writing about a Donald Trump speech is like trying to describe the whiplash that comes with a roller coaster ride. Ninety-degree turns in the middle of a dependent clause, trains of thoughts that dart into tunnels and never return.

Hey, Paul:Perhaps you'd be more effective with your criticisms of Trump by including links like this:

Did Donald Trump Run a Scam University?

In June 2009, Richard and Shelly Hewson paid the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative, an educational venture owned by businessman and now–presidential candidate Donald Trump, $21,490 for classes that promised to teach them how to flip homes for profit. They ponied up the high price “because we had faith in Donald Trump,”(Even the Donald couldn't pry $21,490 from many of us, I'd think.)A class-action lawsuit in California and an ongoing civil suit brought by New York allege that Trump University defrauded up to 5,000 students.---This sounds like it might be worth it:"But instead of getting a personal lesson from Trump, both cases claim, those who signed up got to take a picture with a cardboard cutout of him — and then, the “faculty” allegedly subjected them to another sales pitch, aimed at persuading attendees to sign up for a $34,995 “Gold Elite Program,” which they said would include special training, mentorship, and access to alternative financing sources for real-estate deals." :-)

The U.S. Air force’s lumbering swing-wing bomber, the B-1B Lancer, is taking a back seat in the air campaign against the Islamic State.

Lt. Gen. Charles Q. Brown, commander of the Air Force’s Central Command, told reporters Thursday that the B-1s had been redeployed back to the United States for scheduled upgrades to the aircraft’s cockpits.

Fixer Dave2/20/2016 3:25 AM EST6th...

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2006/01/special_forc...

So we are up in the mountains at about 0100 hrs looking for a bad guy that we thought was in the area. Here are ten of us, pitch black, crystal clear night, about 25 degrees. We know there are bad guys in the area; a few shots have been fired but no big deal. We decide that we need air cover and the only thing in the area is a solo B-1 bomber. He flies around at about 20,000 feet and tells us there is nothing in the area. He then asks if we would like a low level show of force.

Stupid question. Of course we tell him yes.

The controller who is attached to the team then is heard talking to the pilot. Pilot asks if we want it subsonic or supersonic.

Very stupid question.

Pilot advises he is twenty miles out and stand by. The controller gets us all sitting down in a line and points out the proper location.

You have to picture this. Pitch black, ten killers sitting down,dead quiet and overlooking this about 30 mile long valley. All of a sudden, way out (below our level) you see a set of four 200' white flames coming at us.

The controller says, "Ah-- guys-- you might want to plug your ears".

Faster than you can think a B-1, supersonic, 1000' over our heads, blasts the sound barrier and it feels like God just hit you in the head with ahammer". He then stands it straight up with 4 white trails of flame coming out and disappears."

August 18, 2003 (by Stefaan Vanhastel) - Israeli F-16s buzzed the summer residence of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad early on Aug. 11th, as a warning that Israel holds Damascus responsible for the recent flare-up on its northern border.

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Israel sent F-16s over different parts of Syria and Lebanon as a warning sign to Syria. The F-16 planes flew at a low altitude, evading Syrian air defence systems, and arrived back at base without incident.

According to the Israeli Air Force, F-16s flew low for several minutes over Assad's summer residence in Latakia in northern Syria, after easily getting through the country's radar defenses. The F-16s broke the sound barrier over Latakia as well as over Beirut in Lebanon.Israel has attacked Syrian radar stations in Lebanon once since the IDF's withdrawal from the country three years ago.

According to Syria, no evidence has emerged to support the Israeli claim that fighter jets flew a low-level supersonic run over the residence of Syrian President Bashar Assad in Latakia.

On our way back from a Westpac, on the Connie, we stopped in Pearl Harbor for a week. They had a 'Family Cruise' (forget what they called it now) from Pearl Harbor back to San Diego where we could take a member from our family. 7 days. I took my 14-year old kid brother. They had an air show in the middle of the Pacific. Everyone up on the flight deck. They had an F-14 fly-by, only it was a lot closer than 1,000'. More like about 500' above and 500' in front. Supersonic.

The guy over the PA says, 'Ok, everyone, plug your ears.' Looking out in the distance, all you could see was a speck and then all of a sudden, right there in front of you and BOOM!. Same thing, goes by and immediately stands it up. Out of distance in a hurry. My brother and I were like, 'Do it again! Do it again!'.

Your non sequitur doesn’t stand. The US is not grabbing land from Mexico, displacing Mexicans, bulldozing their homes and building colonies and ghettoizing Mexican communities. Currently, Israel is doing all of that in Palestine and worse. It is difficult to impossible to undo historic wrongs. The wrongdoers from history are dead and beyond justice. The Zionist wrongdoers are very much alive and well, doing their dirty business.

Your claims are crap and everyone except the Neocons and died in the wool Zionists know it.

Fascists always claim to be undoing historic wrongs, playing the victim card. Harken to the Nazi claims of injustice done to the historic Germanic tribes. Guess who was top of the list as their ancient tormenter.

I fully accept that most US History , taught us in school, is self-serving bullshit. That misdeed doesn’t give the current US a right to do it again nor does it justify criminal behavior by the Zionists.

It is WiO standard, and often repeated argument - 'so and so did bad things therefore Israel is justified in doing bad things'

He been saying the same shit argument for years and years now. Oh oh, Americans killed Indians and took their land so therefore it is all right for Israelis to commit genocide as well. At least he owns up to Israeli bad deeds by admitting the equivalence.

(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – A local source in Nineveh Province revealed on Saturday, that the coalition aviation shelled one of the largest banks of the so-called ISIS in the province, while indicated that more than 64 ISIS members were either killed or wounded by over 30 air strikes on the organization’s headquarters in the right and left coasts.

The source said in a statement followed by IraqiNews.com, “This evening, international coalition aviation shelled ISIS headquarters in al-Gamea neighborhood, Mosul University building, Arab neighborhood, in addition to two headquarters in the central markets building near Baghdad garage.”

The source added on condition of anonymity, “The primary number of casualties among ISIS members reached more than 40 dead including Arab and foreign nationalities and 24 wounded, based on accurate intelligence information.”

“The shelled headquarters included one of the banks in in the left bank in Mosul that was used by ISIS to as an alternative headquarters to pay the salaries of its members,” the source continued.

(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – Khalidiya Council in Anbar Province announced on Sunday, that 17 members of the so-called ISIS were killed during the cleansing battles in northern Ramadi (110 km west of Baghdad), while emphasized the destruction of a number of ISIS vehicles during the operation.

The Head of the Council Ali Dawood said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “The security forces carried out, at noon today, a military operation to cleanse Albu Obaid area (19 km north of Ramadi) from the ISIS control, killing 17 members belonging to ISIS and destructing a number of vehicles equipped by machine guns, as well as a rocket launcher.”

Dawood added, “The security forces are advancing in the liberation battles of Albu Obaid region in northern Ramadi, backed by the international coalition aviation that played a notable role in destructing ISIS strongholds and gatherings,” pointing out that, “The next few hours will witness the liberation of Albu Obaid area.”

The United States, Russia and other world powers agreed Feb. 12 on a deal calling for the ceasing of hostilities within a week, the delivery of urgently needed aid to besieged areas of Syria and a return to peace talks in Geneva. Aid shipments were allowed into several besieged areas last week.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he welcomed the latest provisional agreement and called on all regional powers to use the “window of opportunity” to exert their influence on the warring parties.

In northern Syria, meanwhile, the Syrian army captured 31 villages Sunday that were controlled by ISIS, according to the pro-Syrian Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen TV and Hezbollah’s Al-Manar station. Both outlets often have reporters embedded with Syrian troops.

Deuce ☂Sun Feb 21, 09:55:00 PM ESTYour non sequitur doesn’t stand. The US is not grabbing land from Mexico, displacing Mexicans, bulldozing their homes and building colonies and ghettoizing Mexican communities. Currently, Israel is doing all of that in Palestine and worse. It is difficult to impossible to undo historic wrongs. The wrongdoers from history are dead and beyond justice. The Zionist wrongdoers are very much alive and well, doing their dirty business.

Your claims are crap and everyone except the Neocons and died in the wool Zionists know it.

And yet America is bombing arabs and killing many times more civilians than Israel ever has and America is 9000 miles away..

The deaths? 2200 in the last war? 1/2 were terrorists. Or if you wish "Freedom fighters" I don't care.

Compare than to the Americans, Iranians, Syrians, Russians, Egyptians and others directly surrounding Israel and not from years gone by but within the last 12 months....

No one standard to judge.

But IF we were honest? Israel stands heads and shoulders above even the USA, let alone Iran, Hezbollah, Russia and others.

Israel bulldozes the homes of terrorists, of course there are no people inside the homes.

Expansion? MOST of the disputed lands still stand empty.

Look at a satellite image....

MOST 96% of the so called west bank is empty...

arabs have created hundreds of new towns and in the last 50 years, so have the Jews.

If the Palestinians want to settle the issues? they have had numerous opportunities to do so...

But let's remember, they rejected statehood, they could have had a state from 1948 to 1967, but didn't.

you cannot turn the clock back...

Now the situation is what it is...

Hamas (a isis like terrorist group) controls the gaza strip, and the corrupt Fatah's abbas is his 11 year of a 4 year term, skimming billions off the billion given to improve the palestinian people's lives....

Israel is not responsible for reforming the arabs of the west bank and gaza. If they seek war? destruction of Israel and genocide of the Jews?

Then don't be pissy when the Jew fight back and win...

:)

The world is getting tired of the palestinian's bullshit. The terror, the tunnels, the genocidal culture of hatred....

And as proof? notice no one cares. the arab world (and moslem world) is on fire....

“Were the Russians to carry out a retaliatory strike against Turkey, we would have a problem,” says a NATO official. In such a case, Turkey could very well invoke Article 5.

Were the North Atlantic Council to fail to achieve unanimity, Mr. Putin would once again have split the West, the official says.

It is a given that the diplomatic channels are burning over the possibility of such a conflict. I would hope that President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry’s self-acknowledged superior diplomacy will win the day and this disaster of a scenario will not materialize.

I don't see how anyone with any concern for human rights could support a 'Palestinian' state, because from the git-go half the population - the women - are thought of as being only 1/2 of a human being.

The arabstinian lovers here never come to grips with fundamentals like that.

Just the other day I put up a post showing an arabstinian leader showing how to properly beat one's wife.

This from the man who waxes poetic about India, land of the caste system and a growing rape problem.

But why even bother looking to the East when we can look much closer to home...

Americans are reading with horror as sexual assault after sexual assault unfolds in India. It’s easy to wonder, “What’s wrong with that country?” But we should be asking what’s wrong with the United States, too.

Rape and violence against women are a massive problem in India. According to the country's National Crime Record Bureau, crimes against women have increased by 7.1 percent since 2010. The number of rapes reported has also risen. Nearly one in three rape victims in India is under the age of 18. One in 10 are under 14. Every 20 minutes in India, a woman is raped.

And yet India only ranks third for the number of rapes reported each year. What country ranks first? The United States. In India, a country of over 1.2 billion people, 24,206 rapes were reported in 2011. The same year in the United States, a nation of 300 million, 83,425 rapes were reported. In the United States, every 6.2 minutes a woman is raped.

Even if sexual assault in India is dramatically underreported, which most likely it is, the statistical difference is still striking—as is our uniquely American inclination to dismiss such monstrous human rights violations as problems that other countries face. Not only is violence against women a global pandemic but the United States may be leading the pack.

Oh, but you think, women who've been sexually assaulted in America are better treated. Rape victims in India, especially in rural villages, are often subject to shaming and considered unfit for marriage. But meanwhile, in Steubenville, Ohio, two young men who were convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl too intoxicated to consent continue to be defended as upstanding football players while the reputation of the young woman is smeared. When the verdict was announced, a CNN reporter came close to portraying the rapists as passive victims: “These two young men that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believed their lives fell apart.” Other media coverage seemed equally sympathetic to the perpetrators.

Meanwhile, the victim was blamed. Early on, one of the 19 coaches of the Steubenville High football team said the victim was just making up the rape. The victim and her family had to get police protection due to the level of threats against them. Two weeks ago, a prominent local activitist in Steubenville spoke about the “alleged victim” (even though the allegations had turned into a conviction) and suggested, according to a reporter, that the victim “might have been a willing participant”. Meanwhile, the woman who broke the story of the rape—she is a local blogger—has been harassed and threatened.

Isolated incident of smearing and shaming the victim? Afraid not. Just weeks after the Steubenville story broke, two high school football players in Torrington, Connecticut were accused of raping a 13-year-old girl. The response? Dozens of people from the town took to social media to berate and blame the 13-year-old accuser...

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http://www.more.com/news/india-rape-capital-world

You are worried about women, Bob? Well, we've got problems right here. Instead of sitting around the casino every day, why don't you get off your ass and get down the the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual & Domestic Violence and volunteer. Get the message out. Make a difference.

Mallika Dutt runs Breakthrough, an organization that works to build human rights culture in India and the United States. Dutt says the differences between the two countries are more perceived than real. “There’s an assumption that [in America] we’re more evolved, that we’re more civilized, that the status of women is waaaaay better than the status of women in India or any other part of the world,” says Dutt.

That's untrue, says Dutt, and the false comfort may do Americans more harm than good. “It's always easier to ascribe negative attributes to the other than to than yourself,” she says. But such denial means we focus on the problems elsewhere to the detriment of improving conditions here in the United States as well. Violence against women anywhere should be a reminder to scrutinize injustice everywhere, including right here at home...

Former Secretary of State and current Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton believes both Republican candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz “missed the mark” with their approach to the Israel-Palestinian Arab conflict.

...

In one e-mail she referred to Israelis as "always cocky"; in another e-mail, dated 2011, she mulled a plan by a senior aide to stir up Palestinian unrest in order to pressure Israel to restart peace talks with the PA.

The Feb. 19 airstrike on an apparent Islamic State (IS) training camp near Sabratha isn’t the precursor to a sustained American air campaign in Libya, US officials have made clear.

Instead, the pre-dawn bombing that killed some 40 suspected terrorists near the border with Tunisia appears to be better understood as a one-off operation aimed at protecting that fledgling democracy from militants who would plunge it into chaos. Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the strike aimed to take out Tunisian national Noureddine Chouchane, a prime suspect in the 2015 attacks that killed 60 people in Tunis and Sousse, along with a camp where foreign fighters were training for possible “external attacks on US interests in the region.”

“I think this [attack] should be treated separately than the Libya issue,” said Christopher Chivvis, the associate director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the Rand Corporation. “I think this has much more to do with Tunisia than it does with Libya.”

The “isolated compound” that was destroyed by F-15 jets and unmanned aircraft, he said, is “nothing like going after the thousands of [IS] fighters” present in their Libyan stronghold of Sirte, hundreds of miles to the east.

“Obviously the United States is concerned about the stability of Tunisia and the impact that the terrorist attacks that took place last year can have on the Tunisia political system, which still remains the one shining light from the 2011 Arab uprisings,” Chivvis told Al-Monitor. “There are certainly a lot of countries that are interested in doing what we can to strengthen security in Tunisia, and this was an obvious attempt to step in that direction...”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged calm in talks on Sunday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to a two-state solution to the conflict.

...

Palestinian leaders say many Palestinian attackers have acted out of desperation in the absence of movement toward creation of an independent state. Israel says they are being incited to violence by their leaders and on social media.

They never have been. They are a false construct, created to take down the Jewish state when armed conflict between national state actors on the arab side failed.

But now?

Hamas & Fatah are showing their true colors.

Fatah murders Hamas, Hamas murders Fatah.

And the Arabs being held hostage under their terror lose.

Maybe the best solution is Israel taking over the whole place. Give gaza and the arab controlled areas of the West bank "Confederation", Israel will have to oversea it all. Of course, Jordan will have to remove it's Monarchy as well as 90% of Jordan was part of the original mandate for Palestine.

Autonomy.

Just like Jimmy Carter sought in the Camp David accords.

Not an independent arab state, but autonomy...

of course, the hamas and fatah leaders and soldiers? They will have to be deported to Sweden....

The Senegalese authorities recently reported that 30 men had gone to Libya to fight with the Islamic State there, trends that officials in Niger, Nigeria and Mali have also noticed.

As the Islamic State pushes closer to some of the poorer countries of the Sahel region, like Niger and Mauritania, the authorities here believe there will be no shortage of unemployed young men who are eager to join the fight.

To help fight that trend, Special Forces from 30 African and Western countries are participating in a three-week counterterrorism training exercise here on this sprawling army encampment 35 miles outside Dakar that is also home to Senegal’s military academy.

On several shooting ranges, dotted with massive baobab trees, American, Canadian, Dutch and Belgian trainers worked with soldiers from Niger and Nigeria.

Some troops were practicing first aid; others were shooting at close-range targets. The Belgians were leading a more difficult training exercise in which the African soldiers approached fortified targets from afar, and then assaulted the targets from several different directions — as they would in an actual raid.

With help from Dutch Marines and American Special Forces, Senegal is also training a new force to patrol its watery northern border with Mauritania, and it is deploying troops to neighboring Mali to help a United Nations force stymie Qaeda and other militant fighters there.

“ISIS is spreading even to here,” said Col. Guirane Ndiaye, a Senegalese zone commander. “If we do not have a multinational effort, ISIS will spread even more.”

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.